CCP announces a Clone States update is coming to update
EVE Online in November to add free play
to the science fiction MMORPG. This will replace the game's current 14-day trial
with the ability to play for free as an Alpha Clone. This grants access to all
areas of the game with certain character progress limitations. The alternative
is to be an Omega clone, which works the same as current subscriptions.
This video introduces
the plan and
this blog post has all the details, explaining they believe this is a way to
bring in new players without upsetting the game's economy. Here's a bit:

This
feature is built around the complex biotechnology which originally gave rise to
the capsuleers: clones. Technological advancements in New Eden have led to a new
way of manufacturing and augmenting clones, unlocking the possibility for a
variety of distinct Clone States. With this technology, clone manufacturers can
now build and distribute clones which possess a base state, the Alpha state.
They can be enhanced or otherwise altered to achieve other states, but the Alpha
state will always exist underneath. The state of a given clone may affect its
access to trained skills, its ability to train new ones, or the rate at which
new skills are acquired.

When we launch later this year there will be two clone states available:

The Alpha Clone State is the new base state for all clones and it
will be available to any character in New Eden at any time. Clones in the
Alpha state will be able to train and use a specific set of skills including
tech one Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers for your faction along with
essential weapons and modules. Alphas will also train skills at a reduced
rate compared to Omegas.

The Omega Clone State is obtained by augmenting basic clones
using neural expanders and cerebral acceleration technology, granting
unlimited skill access. Omega clone state will behave exactly as your
subscribed characters do now.
Your clone state will be determined by your account status. Characters on
subscribed or PLEXed accounts will be granted Omega state, while Alpha state
will be given to characters on any unsubscribed account.

You probably have a lot of questions already, and we will address many of
them here, but let’s start with some discussion about why we are excited to make
this change and why we’re making it now.

As you know, EVE is a very special game. Our single shard server means that
every player truly affects every other, whether through economics, resource
gathering, direct combat or bad posting. This in turn means that our universe is
more interesting, more exciting and more dangerous with each additional
citizen.

Meaning it's meant for people to get into the game, can do most things very well and effectively. It might actually generate more players in eve actually and give us bitter veterans more conflict and things to shoot at. So this could be a great time for Eve

They used to let you play for two weeks as a trial. It was good to figure out whether it was for you or not. I did four freebies in a row.

Also, I've heard that people can essentially play for free by selling ISK? Is that partly driving this?

I joined the penny arcade guild for a bit. They told me to get out to them...deep in 0 sec space, or whatever you call it. It was harrowing, but I made it. Some dude gave be several billion in credits to spend on upgrades. No biggie. Seems the people in that game are beyond rich.

lots of good corporations/alliances will donate ships/isk to newbies and show them the game. Plenty of people want Eve to keep going.

NKD wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 16:07:Today on Blue's: People bitch about a game being too niche and ask for it to be dumbed down and mainstreamed to appeal to them.

Way to flip the script.

The script is really more "Today on Blue's: People bitch when a game isn't tailored 100% to their likings and is instead intended for a different audience. 'I only have $800 to spend on games this year, so every single game released in this multibillion dollar industry better be exactly what I want, otherwise I'm bashing it and all its fans online!'"

Vall Forran wrote on Sep 19, 2016, 04:53:I joined the penny arcade guild for a bit. They told me to get out to them...deep in 0 sec space, or whatever you call it. It was harrowing, but I made it. Some dude gave be several billion in credits to spend on upgrades. No biggie. Seems the people in that game are beyond rich.

If you live out in nul sec, money comes much easier than in the safe areas.However you have to be more carefulI've done it for a while but found it to be a bit more stressful way to play.I prefer to live in the high sec regions, doing missions, mine, and do some trades. It may not be as exciting as living in nul sec and being part of a good corp, but I can't dedicate the time to play in a corp and coordinate for corp ops and stuff. Just my preference.

Meaning it's meant for people to get into the game, can do most things very well and effectively. It might actually generate more players in eve actually and give us bitter veterans more conflict and things to shoot at. So this could be a great time for Eve

They used to let you play for two weeks as a trial. It was good to figure out whether it was for you or not. I did four freebies in a row.

Also, I've heard that people can essentially play for free by selling ISK? Is that partly driving this?

I joined the penny arcade guild for a bit. They told me to get out to them...deep in 0 sec space, or whatever you call it. It was harrowing, but I made it. Some dude gave be several billion in credits to spend on upgrades. No biggie. Seems the people in that game are beyond rich.

jdreyer wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 16:35:Also, I've heard that people can essentially play for free by selling ISK? Is that partly driving this?

You can play for free by buying "PLEX" with in game currency. PLEX is only generated when someone spends real cash to buy PLEX and sell it for ingame currency. Basically it's a cash for gold but legal and made by the developers.

The issue is, it takes roughly 1 week of work to pay for a PLEX so some people love this and some people hate it.

Towyn wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 19:39:CCP decided multiboxing is evil, that kind of ended that dream for me.

I am not sure when that happened, but as of right now you can run multiple accounts on the same computer no problem.As long as they are not test accounts.

Not if you run 21 on 4 screens and use assistance tools. I still manually pushed the "jump", but did still cut and paste screen-portions onto my main screen to maneuver them more easily. And I've been told by my fellow freighter-freaks CCP has been cutting down on the usage of isboxer drastically.

Cutter wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 15:33:No one cares. It's a game for griefers by griefers which is why it always has been and always will be a niche game F2P or not.

Truer words were never spoken. CCP could make the game more accessible and newbie friendly, but they won't. They love their sociopathic griefer demographic too much. I resub from time to time and I get tired of seeing the anti-griefing channels alive with reports of people multiboxing and using keystroke replicating software, which CCP claims is now bannable, to gank people at will in high-sec space. CCP won't ban them because they're using the money they get from ganking to buy PLEX to fuel all those extra accounts.

Guess which alliance these people are a member of for bonus points.

As someone who, in his prime, multiboxed 21 accounts on 4 screens just to fly freighters in hi-sec (one agent coordinating, 20 freighters, not a single one on auto-pilot)... I loved the game, at some point. But when you spend 1 week every month to earn money for PLEXes, 1 week every month to earn money for potential new investments, then 2 weeks of money just to give it away to people in events... You ask yourself if you really want to play a game like that. I never liked the way combat is handled. And the community, on both extremes of the scale, feels just too acidic.

I loved the game, and I loved the little community I was in, but it felt too much like work and too little like a game. It's one of those games I always wanted to go back to, until CCP decided multiboxing is evil, that kind of ended that dream for me.

I can't think of anything less fun in EVE Online than "access to all areas of the game with certain character progress limitations." That's only slightly above the 2 months it takes to learn a new skill.

NKD wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 16:07:Today on Blue's: People bitch about a game being too niche and ask for it to be dumbed down and mainstreamed to appeal to them.

Way to flip the script.

LOL eve is a bad game period, it caters to retards. They don't call it the spreadsheet game for nothing. Freespace 2 is infinitely more fun then eve will ever be, eve is the ultimate badly designed casual game because everything is automated. MMO's are casual games, games like freespace are hardcore.

Claiming you are hardcore at 99% of mmo's is like claiming you are a hardcore bejewelled player.

It is an AWESOME game for your desk bound genius. Extra monitor, Eve on it - do your afk stuff while working - someone enters your part of null put the work phone on busy and have some very tactical and challenging gameplay.

But if you had to play it without doing something else at the same time... pretty dull.

NKD wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 16:07:Today on Blue's: People bitch about a game being too niche and ask for it to be dumbed down and mainstreamed to appeal to them.

Way to flip the script.

LOL eve is a bad game period, it caters to retards. They don't call it the spreadsheet game for nothing. Freespace 2 is infinitely more fun then eve will ever be, eve is the ultimate badly designed casual game because everything is automated. MMO's are casual games, games like freespace are hardcore.

Claiming you are hardcore at 99% of mmo's is like claiming you are a hardcore bejewelled player.

Cutter wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 15:33:No one cares. It's a game for griefers by griefers which is why it always has been and always will be a niche game F2P or not.

Truer words were never spoken. CCP could make the game more accessible and newbie friendly, but they won't. They love their sociopathic griefer demographic too much. I resub from time to time and I get tired of seeing the anti-griefing channels alive with reports of people multiboxing and using keystroke replicating software, which CCP claims is now bannable, to gank people at will in high-sec space. CCP won't ban them because they're using the money they get from ganking to buy PLEX to fuel all those extra accounts.

Guess which alliance these people are a member of for bonus points.

I haven't played in a while, but I didn't get ganked once in high-sec. On the other hand, that might have been because I had nothing to steal...

Meaning it's meant for people to get into the game, can do most things very well and effectively. It might actually generate more players in eve actually and give us bitter veterans more conflict and things to shoot at. So this could be a great time for Eve

They used to let you play for two weeks as a trial. It was good to figure out whether it was for you or not. I did four freebies in a row.

Also, I've heard that people can essentially play for free by selling ISK? Is that partly driving this?

Cutter wrote on Aug 31, 2016, 15:33:No one cares. It's a game for griefers by griefers which is why it always has been and always will be a niche game F2P or not.

Truer words were never spoken. CCP could make the game more accessible and newbie friendly, but they won't. They love their sociopathic griefer demographic too much. I resub from time to time and I get tired of seeing the anti-griefing channels alive with reports of people multiboxing and using keystroke replicating software, which CCP claims is now bannable, to gank people at will in high-sec space. CCP won't ban them because they're using the money they get from ganking to buy PLEX to fuel all those extra accounts.